Backyard Catio – Part 15
Backyard Catio – Part 15

Backyard Catio – Part 15

Sorry for the long delay between posts – I am still having major issues accessing my site from home.  Right now it’s working, but pretty much every weekday afternoon/evening it’s inaccessible for me, which is my [TANTRUM] prime post-writing time!  I have like 4 half-written posts in my drafts folder, the result of working on a post when WHAM! my site disappears taking my post with it [and tossing it into the draft folder, thankfully, and not the trash can].  Here’s the first one to make it out of draft form:

Two weekends ago I was standing in the yard, minding my own business, when I hip-checked the cat enclosure by accident.  Moments later a torrent of water cascaded down my face, chest, and drill.  D’oh!  It turns out a flat polycarbonate plastic roof is great until it rains, and then it’s just FULL of surprises!  So.  I decided the roof needed to be angled.  Stat!

I went to Home Depot and bought 2 10-foot 2×4’s.  Here’s a photo to prove that 10-footers will fit just fine in a 2008 Honda Civic Coupe, with room to spare:

lugging 10' 2x4's home in my 2008 honda civic coupe wood catio

I cut one of them down to 6′ and stained it:

193b

While the stain dried I removed the roof and dragged my power drill with extension cord out of storage [the batteries for my cordless are slowly dying].  A few minutes later I was able to position the new 6′ 2×4 on top of the existing 6′ 2×4 [that forms the top/back of the enclosure frame].  I secured them together with four, flat metal braces:

angling the roof of the outdoor cat enclosure / catio frame

Two braces towards the outer edges on the front side and two braces towards the center on the back side:

angling the roof of the outdoor cat enclosure / catio so it's not flat        193d

Then I re-attached the roof.  Hopefully this means no more cold, wet surprises for ME!

For the angled side pieces I cut a 39″ piece of 2×4 in half – at an angle the long way – so it formed 2 long,  slender triangles.  I took them outside and placed them on top of the enclosure – one on each side – to make sure they were the right fit:

193g

Perfect!

Then stained them and screwed them to the enclosure using deck screws, then screwed the roof to them:

193h        193i

Now we haz angled roof.  Hooray!

angling the roof of the outdoor cat enclosure / catio so it's not flat

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